Almudena Bernabéu, Woman for Labour Equality according to El País

The Spanish newspaper El País has included Guernica Group’s co-founder and co-principal, Almudena Bernabéu in its list of “40 Women for Labour Equality”. According to the newspaper, Spain still needs a real (legislative and awareness-raising) change concerning female employment “to achieve the same opportunities, conditions and wages as men”.

The report collects the testimonies of 40 “commendable women” working in different professional areas in Spain, from Arts and Fashion, to Politics and Law. Amongst these 40 women, we find very different profiles, including the Minister of Health, Social Services and Equality, the Director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, and Maysun Shukair, a Syrian pharmacist and writer who faced the difficult experience of leaving her country and becoming a refugee. Despite their differences, all of them are key references in the fight for labour equality. The report was published in SMODA’s Special Issue “Working Girl”, which was included in the paper edition of El País on 19th August 2017, and it is now available online in the following link.

Paka Díaz, the journalist leading this project, wrote an article on the current conditions of female employment in Spain, whose title “The matter is how much more does a woman sacrifice than a man to get where she wants” brings the “hard reality of gender inequality” to the table. The article analyses the differences between men and women in the Spanish labour market, covering violence and sexual abuse, differences in intra-household responsibilities and the wage gap.

Moreover, the newspaper has also created a video—now available in the online version of the report—, in which the women participating in the project identify those female characters who “havingplayed in a man-made World” have become an inspiration: Victoria Camps, Carlota Bustelo, Estrella de Diego, or even former judge and current mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena.

The report includes the testimony of Almudena Bernabéu, who analysed the comparative characteristics of female professional profiles in different countries, highlighting the great potential offered by the Equality Law in Spain:

“Having worked in United Kingdom, United States and Spain, I observe differences. English women are very powerful professionally speaking, probably be due to Thatcher’s influence. Women in the U.S. seem to lack strong references, everything is very stereotyped, like Barbie-style or the first-ladies-model. Here, we would only need to apply the Equality Law to advance, but apparently, they now want to limit it, which would be a huge backward step”.